ELISA TOMELLINI, pianist & alpinist

The Famous british newspaper  The Guardian identifies  Elisa Tomellini as one of the brightest talents among today’s exceptional generation of young pianists.

Elisa is an Italian concert-pianist; she was born in the city of Genoa, Italy.
From the age of five, Elisa has played the piano. The professor Lidia Baldecchi-Arcuri taught her to play from this very young age.

Elisa has since travelled to Milan and Verona in order to continue her musical studies with Ilonka Deckers-Kuszler and Laura Palmieri.

At the age of sixteen, Elisa was admitted to the prestigious Music Academy ‘Incontri Col Maestro’ in Imola. Here she was taught by a number of established musicians including Alexander Lonquich, Riccardo Risaliti, Franco Scala, Joaquin Achucarro and Piero Rattalino.
Following this, Elisa attended numerous master-classes with the illustrious Maestros such as Maurizio Pollini, Sviatoslav Richter and Lazar Berman.

In 1997, Elisa gained a diploma with the highest scores at the Conservatory G. Verdi of Milan. She then went onto work with Professor Vincenzo Balzani in order to expand her repertoire and improve her technique.

Elisa is the winner of several prizes at international competitions such as the ‘Viotti Valsesia’, the ‘Concorso di Cantù’ and the ‘Concorso Città di Pavia’.

The famous magazine ‘Piano Time’ refers to Elisa as a ‘prominent pianist in Italy’.

In Italy, Elisa has performed in recitals and with orchestras at important music festivals including the ‘Società dei Concerti’ (Milan), the ‘Teatro Carlo Felice’ (Genoa) and ‘L’orchestra Del Teatro Filarmonico’ (Verona).

Elisa has also performed in Slovenia, Hungary, Romania, Croatia and Serbia. At some of these events, RAI RADIO 3 broadcasted Elisa’s performances live on air.

Elisa took a sabbatical period from her musical career and lived for a few years in the Alps where she developed a passion for trekking and climbing mountains. Subsequently, Elisa pursued such activities in the far-flung corners of the world. Later, Elisa made her come back and debuted at the Kennedy Center in Washington and the Gewandhaus (Lipsia, Germany).

Elisa’s recent album, released under Vermeer, features pieces from Sergej Rachmaninov and her unique arrangements of Astor Piazzolla’s operas. Her new album, under Piano Classic, will present works from Sergej Rachmaninov including the unknown Suite in D minor and other early works.

Elisa’s chamber music concerts have featured eminent musicians such as Andrea Bacchetti, Olaf Jhon Laneri, Cristiano Rossi, Bin Huang, Luca Franzetti, Massimo Quarta. She performed as well in a two-piano program between classic and jazz with Andrea Pozza.

Next projects include a Trio with Gilles Apap and Luca Franzetti, and the recording of  Liszt-Paganini  Trascendental Etudes – 1st version 1838-  in Lugano Switzerland Radio RSI for Dynamic. This is  the first world performance by a women.

The repertoire of Elisa is mostly based on the Romantic era and the Russian composers for which she often performs entire recitals. Furthermore, Elisa’s music collection also encompass a few other genres such the Nuevo Tango of Astor Piazzolla.

In order to close the circle of her two lives, that of a pianist and the life in which she temporarily abandoned music to discover the beauty of the world, she performed what  is called the world’s highest piano concert after scaling a 14,700ft (4.460 m) peak in the Alps, Monte Rosa- 2017 July 8 . The concert is more than just personal. Elisa intends to donate the film rights to the Sanonani Association, an organisation which runs a children’s foster home in Kathmandu.

“…. Tomellini shows her core strengths in this repertoire at the outset: The opening beautifully strong but not banged, the turbulence visceral yet not over-sentimentalized… It is in the Lento that she shines, though, embarking with a gorgeous sense of stasis, complete with a sense of foreboding in the left hand as it underpins a mournful melody. This builds this to a simply wonderful climax, all the more powerful through Tomellini’s careful pacing of the movement. She is charming in the Menuetto before doing her best with the finale.. ..her vision penetrates to the core of the piece. As the listening experience goes on it becomes increasingly clear that Tomellini’s heart and soul are being poured into this project, her script clearly being to raise the profile of these pieces…Tomellini delineating the various strata to perfection….This Prelude bristles with energy under Tomellini’s fingers before a “Mélodie” flows, easily and inevitably. Tomellini’s projection of her left hand under turbulent waters is blissfully judged; the later arrival of peace, depicted by the composer almost in a musical evocation of waves lapping gently at a seashore, is a delight. The more festive Gavotte that closes the set is very much of the salon but, it has to be said, hugely enjoyably so. As a side note, Tomellini manages to deliver the frequently complex textures clearly. The three Nocturnes are glorious youthful outpourings. The first effectively opens out into sunshine, the cascading figures imbued with unstoppable youthful verve by Tomellini. The second Nocturne (in F♯ Minor) is impassioned with an unsettled, thrusting central panel that reveals Tomellini’s superb finger strength. The C-Minor Nocturne is a remarkable mini-edifice, strongly and compellingly given here.

If the E-Minor Canon was a composition exercise (it was), it is a remarkably charming one. The F-Major Prelude of 1891  is a perfumed offering, fluent and engaging in this performance.

Finally, the Morceaux de salon seems imbued with the Russian soul in Tomellini’s performance… the Valse  rises to a bright, glistening conclusion perfectly rendered both by Tomellini and by the engineers. Infinitely more magical, though, are the Barcarolle and “Mélodie. …..Tomellini’s love for the musical surface shines … She finds wonder in Rachmaninoff’s imagination in the Humoresque, the virtuoso writing towards the end positively brilliant before she locates the still interior of the Romance. The set ends with an effusive Mazurka, impressively dispatched here with great character.

Urgently recommended. The recording itself is top-notch; Tomellini’s next release is eagerly awaited.”

                                                                                                 Colin Clarke, Fanfare

“…As a lifetime Rachmaninoff aficionado, I really appreciate this record…and I can’t recall enjoying these pieces more.”  

                                                James Harrington -American Record Guide 2017, July August

 

Talented, young Tomellini, talented and acute…And now, what is Elisa going to do? On the basis of these premises, probably she will not stop anymore…”

                                                                        Amadeus  2017 September -Piero Mioli

“Piano Classics’comprehensive Rachmaninoiv set is a brilliant showcase of what the label has done so successfully over the last five years – identifying and recording some of brightest talents among today’s exceptional generation of young pianists. With six different musicians involved on these discs there are unevennesses, but none of the playing is less than very good, and some is breathtaking….

…Some have been released by Piano Classics as single discs, while some, such as Elisa Tomellini’s busy roundup of Rachmaninov’s early piano pieces, are new.”

                                                                           – The Guardian: 2016 October 26

“Her Rachmaninov appears thoughtful, sophisticated in technical solutions, mastered wonderfully in technically challenging passages, capable of airy phrasing, deeply feminine in yield, reduced to charming miniatures …”

…”It is impossible not to be enchanted in front of her compassionate, heartfelt performance of Astor Piazzolla operas. In them the ‘alternation of relentless rhythmic chants at oasis of Iberian melancholy, are enhanced by the arrangements of the pianist, who never betrays the spirit of this music for exterior digital exhibitions or inopportune saccharinity.”….

“You really should take the opportunity to listen to her”

                                                                                                -Musica  2016 April-

“…she has endured with quintessential vigor,  no yielding nor imperfections. On the contrary,  a crescendo of energy , dynamism and concentration supported by  such an incredible clarity and expertise so as to afford a persistent agogic evolution…… a deeply captivating and touching Rachmaninov interpretation constantly fluctuating between spectacular and decadence, between gestural and color rendering, between passion and fury. This duality has reached its climax in the two concluding pieces addressed hand in hand with her sensual lyricism and juvenile  feeling…” 

                                                                                     Piano Time – Claudio Bolzan

“…many in the public have been touched by this pianist whose interpretations of Scrabin and Rachmaninov are fiery…”

                                                                                       – La Stampa , aprile 2010

“Elisa Tomellini without any doubt, shows what the real meaning of playing “piano” is: she keeps notes clear and delicate, perfectly intelligible but at the same time elusive…Her phrasing turns out to be rugged as a lived in landscape, not a merely painted and contemplated one. ..In the imaginative world of the artist, the listener can find full consonance with the plasticity of those sounds that seems to permeate her performances through fresh and impalpable atmospheres, safe anchors, solids and voids, peaceful paths and steep passages, harmonies among different textures and volumes”

                                                                                                – Roberta Pedrotti